


Dona, Dona

by DeathknightQ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathknightQ/pseuds/DeathknightQ
Summary: Radek is the eldest child.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Dona, Dona

_"On a wagon bound for market there's a calf with a mournful eye.  
High above him there's a swallow, winging swiftly through the sky.  
Stop complaining, said the farmer, who told you a calf to be?  
Why don't you have wings to fly with, like the swallow so proud and free?  
Calves are easily bound and slaughtered, never knowing the reason why.  
But anyone who treasures freedom like the swallow has learned to fly."  
\-- "Dona, Dona" (a Yiddish folk song)_

Radek crouched low, drawing his knees up to his chest to occupy as little space as possible. Darkness had just fallen, a chill blanket that covered the town overtop the pale sheet of snow. Radek breathed out. His breath caught the golden light coming from the window, light that came from electricity instead of candles. Inside the housing unit was a heater dutifully supplied by the government to heat the workers, and the family it warmed was eating dinner paid for by the government's wage. Radek could hear the children inside reciting some sort of drill or poem as dinner cooked. Perhaps they were even reading from a book.

Radek would very much like to own books someday. He knew how to read, his mother had taught him and his siblings, but his father's secretly-printed pamphlets were an unending riddle filled with combinations of letters he did not understand. Sometimes he could sound them out, guess at the meaning from how he had heard his father had use the word during lectures and late-night mutterings, but often he had to ask. He didn't practice enough to read well. It was like math, another skill he had and enjoyed but did not have time to use.

He had other things he needed to be doing. As long as the KSČ controlled all jobs, Father could not work. If he worked, his name would be known, and if his name was known, it would not take the police long to connect him with the pamphlets telling the proletariat they had been betrayed. Then the State Security would arrest him.

Radek didn't want that to happen any more than Mother did. So they ran, living on the outskirts of towns and villages and then leaving just before the Security men could become suspicious. Sometimes Mother would take him and his siblings into the village, posing as a widowed beggar with children. The KSČ always needed workers in the fields, Father was good at forging identity papers, and so Mother would usually be given work. When that happened, they had heat and lights and full bellies and school: they were rich, for just that little while (even though the teachers invariably said he was slow, as if he couldn't understand they were telling him he was stupid). During those brief times his family was normal, except for sneaking food and supplies to wherever Father had hidden himself and his supplies.

Father said that other printers got caught because they relied on machines and pre made supplies. Father made his own paper, his own inks, and hand-wrote every pamphlet. It reduced production, but it made him untraceable.

Radek wasn't certain he saw the need for the pamphlets. When they lived like everyone else they weren't hungry, they weren't cold, they had clothes that were clean and fresh, and schoolbooks. Father said it was important for people to be free to think as they wished, that the government should be afraid of the people instead of the other way around, and that the book of Rousseau he read and quoted from would wake the Czech people from sleep if they would only listen.

The book of Rousseau couldn't be eaten. It couldn't even be burned for fuel because Father wouldn't let them. That's what Mother said. She wanted Father to make false papers for himself, to stop writing his pamphlets, and to live like a quiet man because right now if the State Security caught him the best they could hope for was to be sent to Siberia.

Radek didn't know if Mother refrained from turning Father in to State Security because she loved her husband or if she feared she would be sent to Siberia anyway. He supposed it didn't really matter. They were still running and Father still couldn't work.

During the summer it wasn't bad. During the warm months there were berries, roots, rabbits, wild bird eggs, crickets, mushrooms, dandelions, chicory, fish, earthworms, those grub-things Jiří liked, and rats. During the winter, there were only rats. Rodents weren't enough no matter how long Radek hunted. Father, Mother, and he might be able to make it on what he could trap, but there were also Danica, Mirek, and Jiří to consider. Not only were they three more mouths to feed, but they were too young to bear hunger. They cried, they asked for what wasn't there because they believed adults could do magic, and they understood why freedom was worth starvation even less than Radek and Mother did.

The first time, Radek hadn't planned it. He'd been sitting outside the market-place waiting for a rat to wander into his carefully-laid trap when an old woman had left her canvas bag of groceries sitting on the hood of her car while she went back into the store for a forgotten item. The top layer of the bag's contents had been apples, soap, bread, and _cheese_. Radek hadn't had cheese since the last village Mother had worked in almost nine months before. The bag's worth of groceries was enough food to feed the (what was then) four of them for days even without foraging.

So he'd stood on his tip-toes, grabbed the bag off the hood of the car, and ran. The constable that had chased him had been determined, but Radek had slithered into an abandoned den just big enough for his six year-old body and the food. He'd patiently waited for the constable to give up looking for him, breathing in time with the crickets, and then had simply slid out of his hiding place to return to their tent with his find. 

Mother had told him that stealing was wrong, that if the constable had caught him it would have gotten Father captured, and that he must never steal again. But she'd eaten the food along with Father and Danica. She'd said it was only because she needed to eat if Mirek was to be born healthy.

Radek wasn't stupid.

He didn't get caught anymore, mostly because he didn't make dumb mistakes. He only worked in the evening or night, he never stole from the same street twice in the same week, and he never took so much that the owner wouldn't think he'd just mislaid or miscounted. He didn't leave evidence behind, like footprints in the snow or scraps of clothing. He didn't talk to anyone in the towns and he never begged. He moved slowly and in stages, always timing is breathing to the energy of his surroundings. He never, ever kept going when his instinct told him to cut and run. Too many rabbits had made the same mistake and ended up his dinner. If the bait looked too good to be true he didn't take it, either, because he knew from fishing that hooks were a possibility.

Radek shifted, sliding slowly forward to lean against the brick wall as the light inside was doused. He could smell the roast duck the family had eaten, but the stale bread he'd filched from the trash kept his stomach from growling. Radek took a branch and obliterated his footprints. He waited for all sounds of movement to cease before he made his way around the wall to the door.

He'd been smart about graduating from shop-lifting and pick-pocketing to robbing houses and shops, too. Instead of fumbling around on a job until he got caught, he'd swiped some locks from a locksmith's shop to practice on in the safety of the woods. Only when he'd been able to open his practice-locks silently and quickly had he attempted his first break-in. 

This particular lock was a cheap Russian make. It gave way to his wire easily and without fuss. Radek dripped cooking oil on the hinges, rubbed it in, and then opened the door slowly. It creaked a little, but not enough for anyone to notice. Radek slid inside and closed the door slowly. He paused, waiting and _listening_ with every fibre in his small body. There was no movement. Radek crept slowly across the floor. He kept himself low to the ground, breathing softly and deeply as if he was sleeping like the householders.

The duck in the icebox was tempting, but meat was expensive. It would be missed. Instead Radek took a few potatoes, a jar of sauerkraut, and half a loaf of bread that he carefully tore to make it appear a child had helped himself without permission. He offered a silent apology to whoever he got into trouble. Then he left the house and locked the door behind him. He repeated the procedure with three more houses. He took the same precautions every time. Overconfidence was the dumbest mistake to make, like the cuckoo chicks who were so certain that everyone would be as welcoming to them as the wren hens were that they squawked and begged and showed off their bright red mouths, not even noticing something was amiss until Radek slit their throats. Cuckoo chicks were almost as good eating as the eggs. 

Radek knew from his surreptitious visit during the day that unit six had a dog. Radek avoided unit five to keep from waking the unit six animal. Instead he crept sideways along unit four. He carefully erased his tracks behind him.

He retraced his steps back through the neighborhood. He adjusted his pack and waited for the constable's patrol to pass him. Once the watch had passed around the corner, Radek darted into the middle of the street, carefully pulled the manhole cover free, slid down the ladder, and pulled the cover shut behind him. It was completely dark, but the rungs were a steady trail down to the muck below.

The smell was unbelievable. Radek gagged, then swallowed what he'd thrown up because partially-digested bread was still food. It couldn't be wasted.

Radek paused, breathing shallowly through his mouth, then turned right to head back the way he came. He kept one hand in contact with the wall. Mother said you attracted more flies with honey than vinegar, and she was right. Being nice to the local gang of homeless boys had earned him a very fair trade: in exchange for lessons in lock-picking (and use of his practice-locks) they had given him access to their underground roadmap. At each intersection the boys had carved an arrow pointing backward toward the waste recycling plant.

The sewage came up to his ankles, sloshing and dragging with every step. He really didn't see why the raised walkways couldn't have been built all the way out to the end of the line. It couldn't have been _that_ much more money.

Jesus, it stunk. But it was better than dodging constables all the way out of town.

Radek nearly tripped over the steps up to the walkway, but he managed to catch himself at the cost of sliming up his hand with things he didn't want to think about. He made good time once above the muck and all to soon he reached the final manhole before the plant. Radek climbed the ladder, pushed off the manhole lid, and paused to shake off his boots. The galoshes were an indulgence that had nearly gotten him caught, but he wasn't wading through sewage barefoot. Mother would tan his hide.

This town was a goldmine. In addition to having a sewage system, there was an abandoned cemetery with an equally-abandoned caretaker's house about a mile distant. Since Mother wasn't working in this village -- which meant no one knew their names nor faces, or even that they were there -- they could conceivably spend the entire winter indoors with a fireplace and safe from the State Security. There were even two full boxes of books in the attic. They were mostly Czech novels from before the 1940s and some translated seditious American poetry, but still. Two full boxes of books! And people ate less when they were warm, so it was possible he might even have time to read them.

The only drawback was the ghosts, but Radek had his siblings making decorations to put on the graves. Ghosts were ex-humans, after all, and humans could be bribed. Besides, if they were really lucky, the ghosts might like the decorations so much they'd scare off the police if it came to that. Danica liked the idea even if Mirek was skeptical. Jiří was too young to understand about ghosts.

Radek moved quickly through the woods. The moonlight was as good as a flashlight.

He heard the owls fleeing less than five meters before he smelled the smoke.

Mirek and the candles. He hadn't, he simply _couldn't have_ , not after all the times Radek had told him-- Danica and Jiří and his parents could still be inside-- the townspeople might see-- Radek burst into a run. He wasn't as fast in galoshes as he would have been barefoot, but he wasn't slashing up his feet with debris, either. He tripped several times. Each time he pushed himself up and started running again.

He was going to beat the tar out of Mirek. He'd never tried to beat up anyone before, but he was certain he could figure it out, because Mirek was _six years old_! Radek had started stealing at that age.

The creek was a fifteen-minute walk from the house. There was no way that Mother and Father could extinguish the flames. They were going to lose the house, and maybe someone inside it.

How could Mirek be so stupid?

His family was standing on the edge of the cemetery when he got there, watching helplessly as the house burned. Mother was holding Jiří with Danica pressed to her side. Mirek was standing apart from Father. There was a single bag -- the tent -- by Father's feet. The flames were warm, giving off a golden glow like the choicest sunbeam. They should be pleasant, fueled by books and shelter and safety. They were going to have to live in a tent instead of a warm house; they would have to leave the town even though the youngest homeless boy, Vladimir, hadn't even mastered the cheap Russian locks; and there would be no books.

Radek flung his pack to the side and collided with Mirek in a tangle of fists and legs the younger boy was completely unprepared for.

"Didn't I tell you to put the candles out? How many times did I tell you!" Radek shouted, hitting so hard his fists hurt. "I told you and told you and you didn't listen and now there's no house, no stove, no anything. Just one thing, one thing you had to do, put the candles out, just one thing, and you didn't, and now look!"

Arms wrapped around his stomach. "Radomir!" The arms pulled him up and to the side, pulling him off his brother. Radek struggled against his father's grasp, still shouting even though is father only called him "Radomir" when he was in the worst kind of trouble.

"Put me down!" he commanded furiously. "Put me down, I'm not done yet, _do prdele_!"

His mother slapped him in the face.

"Radomir Kadlec, you are in enough trouble already, don't make it worse."

"Mirek burned the house down!" Radek protested, going limp in his father's arms. "Father says worse."

"Your father is an adult. You are twelve years old and you are not Mirek's parent.We will deal with your brother, who already feels wretched."

Radek finally noticed that Mirek was crying, and he took a vicious kind of satisfaction from that.

"Right now we need to leave," Father said gently. "The blaze will have been noticed." When his feet touched the ground, Radek jerked indignantly out of his father's grasp. He knew the book on Rousseau was in the pack with the tent. The grave decorations, the favorite shirt his mother had bought him in Otony, the doll Danica had made from corn husks, and Jiří's stuffed bear weren't. Those are gone along with everything else, and it was all Mirek's fault.

They walked all the night and most of the next day. Radek traded off carrying Jiří with his mother, who also carried Radek's pack of food. Father carried the tent. Danica held Mirek's hand while they walked. Radek pointedly didn't speak to Mirek, though he talked to his other two siblings.

His mother kept one hand on his shoulder as they travelled. He thought it was to make sure he didn't turn around and give it to Mirek again, but that didn't explain why she looked so sad. Father didn't speak to him, which was fine by Radek -- he shouldn't be in trouble for swearing when Mirek had burned down the house -- even if it hurt like his hands did.

They finally camped by a small creek. His father broke the ice so they could drink. They had the potatoes first, baked in the fire, and the bread. They would have to sleep in the day. Sleeping at night would be too dangerous in the cold. Radek and his parents pitched the tent quietly and spread out the bedding inside. They would all have to sleep in the same "bed" for warmth.

After everything was set up and the food tied between two trees, Father and Mother left the sheltered clearing. Radek listened to them fight, listened to Mother scream that her eldest son was nothing but a common thief; that he provided for the family when Father didn't because of some Westerner long-dead; that Radek was punishing Mirek because Otakar left so much of a father's job to Radek already; that she never wanted any of this; and that if it wouldn't get her exiled or even executed she'd turn in her husband herself.

Father replied that it was better to die standing than live on one's knees, that without the freedom to think and express yourself freely a full belly didn't matter, and that some had to be sacrificed if all were to be saved.

Mother said he was having delusions of grandeur.

Father said she'd been brainwashed by the Soviet machine, a machine that should by its very nature be bent to the will of the people because that's what the Social Contract is all about.

Mother slapped him.

"It's all your fault," Radek said meanly to Mirek, who was staring at the tent cloth with terrified eyes and the blankets drawn up to his chin, even though Radek was fairly certain it was his own fault. Or maybe the KSČ's, but all the "brainwashed masses" were happy and well-fed and the not-brainwashed were leaving the Eastern Bloc for the Western world, so maybe it was Father's fault for not being smart enough to run away. Or maybe his father was just braver than he was.

Or maybe Mother was right, that Father loved a dead man's meaningless words more than his family. Radek didn't know. He just knew that it was all so unfair and that if Mother had her way the house burning down wouldn't be the end of everything because the government would just give them another one. If Mother had her way, Radek could go to school all the time like other children, he wouldn't have to steal and hunt all the time to stave off hunger for one more day, and he wouldn't be "slow." 

If Mother had her way, Father would be in Siberia or executed.

Radek put his face in his hands and sobbed. He hated Czechoslovakia more than anything: more than earthworms that weren't cooked all the way, more than the cuckoos that killed the baby wrens, more than Rousseau, and more than Mirek.

When he couldn't cry anymore, Danica told him he needed to forgive Mirek because she couldn't stand it if Radek was fighting with Mirek at the same time Daddy was fighting with Mama. Mirek was huddled with Jiří at the edge of the bedding. His eyes were red. He looked as miserable as Radek felt.

So Radek forgave his brother. He did it partially because Danica was right, partially because Mirek chose that moment to tell him he'd rescued one of the books from the fire, and partially because being that angry took an energy Radek just couldn't manage for one more moment.

"I-- I-- I wasn't _trying_ to burn the house down," Mirek stammered as they climbed into the bedding. "I was trying to make wards."

"Wards?" Radek asked drowsily as his sibling nested on either side of him.

"It was in one of the books Danica read to me," Mirek said logically. Radek felt jealousy ping him, that Danica had had time to read and was better at it, but he pushed the thought away. Radek was the oldest. He had a responsibility. Besides, Danica and Mirek wouldn't think he was nearly so amazing if he wasn't magically procuring food all the time, would they? "You leave candles burning at each corner of the house and the ghosts can't come in at night," Mirek finished.

"We were bribing the ghosts," Radek said.

"They didn't know that," Mirek replied. Radek really couldn't argue with that, even if he wished Mirek had had the sense to keep the wards away from flammable things or put them on rocks.

"Tell us a story, Radek," Danica commanded, shifting so that Jiří could curl up in the space between her body and Radek's. "A new one. Tell us one about what you'll do when you grow up."

He wasn't going to be a thief.

"When I grow up," Radek began, his voice almost reverential as he described his fondest wish to his siblings, "I'm going to go to space. I'll look at the stars and pick the farthest-away star and I'll go there and build a crystal city with spires that reach all the way to the sky. During the day it'll look like a sapphire crown, and at night it will glow like... like citrine. People will see it for miles. And there will be library in my crystal city, a huge library with more books that anyone could read in a hundred lifetimes if they sat down right after breakfast and didn't stop until dark. All I'll do all day will be reading my library."

"How're you going to rule your city if you're reading all the time?" Mirek asked.

"I won't be the ruler in my city. I don't want to be a king. I want to be wise. That's it: I'll be the wizard. People will come from everywhere to my crystal city with problems they can't fix, and I'll solve them for them. There will be people who live in my city, too, lots of them, living in the city that I built and that I keep running by my wisdom while I read.

"The crystal city will have a ruler, of course, because every city has to have a leader. She'll be wise, too. Not wizard-wise, but she'll make good decisions that benefit everyone and not like the KSČ. Like Mother. Everyone will love her on my faraway star, and I will be her very favorite wizard. The warriors in my city will be strong and brave, and they will keep my crystal city safe from all the monsters. There'll be other wizards in my city as well, the best and most wizardly, and they can do the adventuring because I'll have my crystal city to run."

"Why won't you have adventures? Adventures would be fun," Danica asked.

"Because by the time I get all the way out to my crystal city, I'll be tired of adventuring, remember?" Radek said pragmatically. He'd actually rather skip the adventuring all together, but adventuring was part of any faraway story. It was just the price you paid. "Besides, my crystal city is a refuge from the monsters. Monsters always siege the refuge. So you'll still have your adventures."

"I don't want to live on a faraway star," Mirek protested fearfully.

"We don't have to," Danica said. "Radek can come visit from the crystal city and bring presents."

"Mmhmm, yes," Radek said enthusiastically. "Jewels for you and-- what do you want, Mirek?"

"A real gun."

"I can't send you a real gun," Radek replied stolidly, "Mother would never forgive me."

"Okay, um..." Mirek thought about it. "Candy."

"All right, candy. Candy and jewels from my faraway star. You'll come visit me. I won't be able to leave my crystal city." Nor would he want to, he was sure, not with a grand library to read. "If I came back, someone might capture me and keep me from going back to my city. Or someone might attack my city while I was gone and I couldn't help them with my wizard wisdom so far away on Earth."

"Someone might take your city away from you, if it's so great," Mirek said peevishly. "Then you'll _have to_ come home."

"True," Radek said with a sad smile. "But I would pine, I think, being away from my city."

"Your soldiers would win it back for you," Danica said sleepily. "Your lead soldier would be a handsome prince, just like the fairytales, and he'd have to take the city back to impress the princess."

"Radek should have the princess," Mirek argued. "'Sides, if he has the princess he has to come back to England. That's not far from here."

"I don't _want_ the princess," Radek countered. "Princesses get bothered by things like peas under the bed, and they're way too dramatic about everything. The handsome prince leading my soldiers can have the princess and deal with the weird touch-this-thing-and-die curse the princess is under."

"'Touch this thing and die?'" Mirek asked.

"You know," Radek said, "like Sleeping Beauty. Everyone else touched spindles all the time. She does it and--" Radek gestured.

"Snow White and apples," Danica offered.

"And hair-combs," Mirek added.

"See? Princesses are too much trouble. And they blame everything on everyone else. No, I'll marry someone from my faraway star."

Mirek grumbled.

"There are no such things as crystal cities on faraway stars," Mirek finally stated. His voice was as sullen as the way he pressed his head deep into Radek's shoulder.

"I know. But if you come to see me in my crystal city, I'll give you the real gun."

"I'll visit to destroy it so you'll come home no matter what the prince leading the warriors can do," Mirek promised. Radek pinched his brother as hard as he could, hard enough to bruise. He kept pinching him until Mirek squealed a promise never to burn down Radek's crystal city. The scuffle woke Jiří. Quieting Jiří and getting back to sleep was a hassle, but finally the tent was silent. Several minutes later Mother and Father at last entered the tent. Mother climbed in one side of the makeshift bed, Father on the other, and their children between them in the winter cold. It made Radek's throat hurt in a funny way that wasn't funny at all.

He still hated Czechoslovakia.

Radek closed his eyes tightly. He thought about his faraway star and his crystal city, the handsome prince, the princess, and the wise ruler; imagining the dazzling spires and the fathomless stars that looked down on his magnificent city with its Great Library. He pictured it all in his mind until the joy of it blazed as brightly in his chest as a hundred burning houses.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, Radek's canon backstory makes no historical sense, so this is the best workaround I've got.


End file.
